When has an Overhaul been a good idea???

[Superbatboy]

I can't think of one instance when overhauling a show has been good, which leads to the question why did they do it???

Examples of shows that tanked once they were redone:

Jesse
Naked Truth
Suddenly Susan
Golden Palace (Originally Golden Girls)
Two Guys and a Girl (Originally Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza..)
Here's Lucy(Originally The Lucy Show)
The Weber Show (Originally Cursed)
Archie Bunkers Place (Originally All in the Family)
The Hogan Family (Originally Valarie and Valarie's Family)

And I even heard that Watching Ellie is dumping the one camera with the time clock thing, and shooting the episodes the 4 camera way with a live audience like Seinfeld did. Not that Watching Ellie was that good in the first place.

[DarleneIllyria]

The Facts of Life- When they shortened the cast and introduced the Jo character. The first season had 7 or either 8 girls right? You just couldn't have a 30 minute show that tried to fit in a storyline involving 7 or 8 people. It was confusing for the viewers too.

It's an interesting thought about what would happen to the show if they didn't cut out some of the characters. Frankly, I don't think it would've lasted as long as it did.

That's one show that I think benefited from an overhaul.

[Czas na Zywiec]

Originally posted by Jenny
The Facts of Life- When they shortened the cast and introduced the Jo character. The first season had 7 or either 8 girls right? You just couldn't have a 30 minute show that tried to fit in a storyline involving 7 or 8 people. It was confusing for the viewers too.

It's an interesting thought about what would happen to the show if they didn't cut out some of the characters. Frankly, I don't think it would've lasted as long as it did.

That's one show that I think benefited from an overhaul.

Actually it kinda went into overhaul 3 times. lol The first one was the best when they made the girls work in the cafeteria. Then when they changed to Edna's Edibles, it kinda brought FOL out of the rut it was in in the 4th season, so it was a great change. Season 7 came along at the right time too, they brought Season 6's rut out. 7 and 8 were great seasons, but 9 was just down the tubes. Good thing they didn't continue with just Beverly Ann, Andy and Pippa. lol That would have been unbearable.

[TJL]

Interesting topic.

Jenny brought up the Facts Of Life, which is the only show i can really think of that survived a major overhaul.
Sadly enough, shows being overhauled have become pretty common the past few years, five of the shows Superbatboy mentioned are fairly recent.

"Suddenly Susan" had been aroud for a few years, I think they were trying some last ditch effort to breath some life into it, "Archie Bunker's Place" did the same thing a few years earlier, with better results.

"Naked Truth" was first revamped because it changed networks, and was revamped again, well, because it was making this huge sucking noise...

The most recent trend is taking a show and revamping it immediatly, dropping characters, changing storylines, Titles (yeah Weber Show, I'm talking about you) and as they proved, nothing good can come from that.

It used to be that sitcoms were in development for years, and then broadcast after all the kinks have been worked out.

I thought the networks had all these programming execs whose job it was to put out the best product for the viewers.
Who was asleep at the switch when "Weber" made it to Prime Time?

[oldshows]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Superbatboy
[B]I can't think of one instance when overhauling a show has been good, which leads to the question why did they do it???

Examples of shows that tanked once they were redone:

Jesse
Naked Truth
Suddenly Susan
Golden Palace (Originally Golden Girls)
Two Guys and a Girl (Originally Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza..)
Here's Lucy(Originally The Lucy Show)
The Weber Show (Originally Cursed)
Archie Bunkers Place (Originally All in the Family)
The Hogan Family (Originally Valarie and Valarie's Family)

Here's Lucy and The Lucy Show are two totally different shows. First off, Lucie and Desi Jr. were cast as Lucy's on stage children. They weren't in The Lucy Show. She had a different set of children during TLS, who were wrote out the last 3 season of Secondly, it had a different plot as well. They were not the same show. And finally HL did not neccssarily tank. It was in the top 10 its first 4 seasons including 3rd in season 3. Also, the HL episode Lucy Meets the Burtons was Lucille Ball's 2nd highest rated episode during her 23 years on t.v.

[oldshows]

Also, Lucy and Gale Gordon played two different characters as well. Lucy played Lucy Carmichael, the secertary to Gale's character Mr. Mooney. In HL, she played Lucy Carter, sister in law to Gale's character Harrison Carter.

[Sitcomwriter]

"The Drew Carey Show".I like it more now.Sure it's all sappy but I just like it more now.It used to be original yes and now it's just the same old stuff but now the writing just seems better.

"Sabrina" on the other hand :thumbsdow I wanted to like it.I really did but it sucks now.

[Brian Damage]

Other than the Facts of Life, I can't think of any show that improved after an overhaul.

[The Gooch]

Night Court and Cheers.